TAIPEI, March 28 (Reuters) - Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic devices, beat expectations for the third consecutive quarter on Friday boosted by record sales at its biggest client Apple.

Under its trading name of Foxconn, Hon Hai earns much of its revenue assembling Apple's blockbuster iPads and iPhones. As smartphone sales peak and prices begin to fall, the company has started to shift towards a more consumer-facing business model.

Hon Hai plans to build applications for Internet browser Firefox from Mozilla and has won a license to operate Taiwan's next-generation mobile spectrum. For now, making companies' branded goods accounts for about 80 percent of revenue, analysts estimate. It is Apple's biggest supplier.

Revenue rose 16.9 percent in the final quarter of 2013, taking net profit up 15.3 percent to a record T$42.6 billion ($1.40 billion), Hon Hai said in a statement on Friday. That compared with the T$40.1 billion mean estimate of 13 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

"The iPhone's continued popularity is still Hon Hai's biggest driver," said Yuanta Securities analyst Vincent Chen.